RAPT portal + Brewzilla 4 issues, questions, complaints, etc

[SanPancho]

starting this thread as a place to go through the issues that are coming up with the Brewzilla 4 and its interaction with the RAPT portal. as @Bottoms_Up and others like myself have noted in the main Brewzilla 4 thread here there's quite a bit of evidence of ship-fast-fix-it-later things with both BZ4 and how it works with RAPT.

the marketing of BZ4+RAPT led me to believe there was much more in the way of instant, easy, mobile-friendly control coming in the package than what i've seen in my limited time with the unit.

i'll start with the biggest thing i thought was oversold/BS'd :
1-- the marketing seemed to say that using RAPT with the BZ4 would enable alerts to generated for you with the new wifi access. however the "alert" you get is ..... an email. not a text, or a phone notification, alarm, etc. an email. good for record keeping i guess, but as a time-sensitive message? nerp. (I've solved this issue, and now get text messages. happy to share the fix)

2- the celsius /fahrenheit changes dont stick in RAPT. also noted in the main BZ4 thread. rapt will convert to F. but the next time you look it might be showing you numbers in C, but it still says F. i kept getting my 150f cleaning temp target going back and forth between 150F and 65F. then back to 150F. then 65F. annoying.

3- the profiles you create on RAPT for BZ4 have multiple steps you can program, and you can also set those (email) alerts. but for some reason when you open up a profile you've saved earlier it doesnt show you the alerts. i've gone in and played with it a bunch. i dont see anything that shows when an alert is present/saved as a step in the profile. not sure why that isnt viewable with the rest of the steps. seems kind of important?

4- the mobile app doesnt appear to be an actual app. for reference, im on iPhone SE (2nd) and iOS 16. i used app store, downloaded RAPT and it took me to what appeared to be the regular app.rapt.io web portal. huh, ok. i searched around, saw a link to the Gen 4 instruction manual, and clicked. it popped up, but i i ended up having to hard close the "app" as there was no actual navigation button or other way to go "back" or close the document. WTF. so i try again, and as im going through and playing in the portal i realize its not really an app like you normally think of an app. it seems like its just a shortcut/link to the web portal. after eating lunch and going back in to play around some more i realized i couldn't find the app on my phone. i looked and looked, nothing. checked the "utilities" widget that has three apps inside of it, no luck. thinking i might have done something wrong, i went back to app store and was going to download it again. except that i couldnt. the app store button said "open" on app store, not "get". so yes, i had the "app" on my phone. but there's no button on my home screens. whenever i wanted to open it i had to go to app store to get the "open" button as it didnt exist on my phone with a normal button/widget on my home screens. so to sum it all up: not an "app" with its own environment, just a glorified hotlink to the web portal. and doesnt even save to your phone, had to keep going to app store to use it. what a waste.

so that's my initial list of complaints/issues/etc with BZ4+RAPT, and i havent even actually brewed yet. just played with temp calibration, created text alerts, and explored the "app" as they call it.

if anyone else has other bugs/questions/issues/etc lets get them all together here. maybe once it gets long enough they'll take a look and fix things.

 

[Neldog0]

I just found this posting. You make very interesting points. I also had many problems similar to yours with the GEN4 controller. My problem stemmed from temperature errors ranging from -167F to 780F. Rapt sent one error email after another and it got to be nerve racking. I did not have the problem with C vs F in the controller; but, rather constant error messages that could not be resolved. I never got to my first brew on it before I gave up and sent it back for another unit.

Still waiting for the replacement to arrive.

 

[SanPancho]

I just found this posting. You make very interesting points. I also had many problems similar to yours with the GEN4 controller. My problem stemmed from temperature errors ranging from -167F to 780F. Rapt sent one error email after another and it got to be nerve racking. I did not have the problem with C vs F in the controller; but, rather constant error messages that could not be resolved. I never got to my first brew on it before I gave up and sent it back for another unit.

Still waiting for the replacement to arrive.

yeah, there's a few folks that have had issues with the actual controller. there's always going to be a few defective units, that part doesnt seem too crazy. but it obviously sucks that you got stuck with that as your issue since you're still waiting for replacement.

i havent gotten anything from those guys either with more support /answers, other than a response about the alert settings being turned off by them. they're telling me there is a whole new firmware/os update that will address the issue, but didnt have more detail than that. i believe it should be hitting any day now from what i have seen.

and i was able to locate the app on my phone eventually. it seems that for some reason it didnt show up on my normal screens, i had to search for it in a "app library" to hunt it down, then bring it onto my regular phone screens/homescreen.

there's still tons of these admittedly small but very annoying things going on. it seems like their overall response is "if we waited for perfect we'd never ship you a unit" and i get that, but that should mean you did the best you can before you shipped. whereas i get the feeling it instead has become for them an excuse to rush things out the door without the support /testing on the back end.

i'm still using mine, just super disappointed. i'd wager you're a bit more frustrated than that....

 

[Neldog0]

Thanks for getting back to me. By no means am I newby. I have over 30 years brewing and jumped on the Brewzilla when I knew I needed a smaller profile for all-grain.

 

[NZBrad]

Hi Guys, I'm on the cusp of buying a gen 4 Brewzilla.
Has the unit grown on you at all? Would love to hear how its going. I've read mixed reviews. The local homebrew shop here sells them, but has tried to talk me into the Grainfather G30 instead. I'm still leaning towards the Gen 4 but needing some reassurance from someone who actually uses one.

 

[brewjoyer1337]

starting this thread as a place to go through the issues that are coming up with the Brewzilla 4 and its interaction with the RAPT portal. as @Bottoms_Up and others like myself have noted in the main Brewzilla 4 thread here there's quite a bit of evidence of ship-fast-fix-it-later things with both BZ4 and how it works with RAPT.

the marketing of BZ4+RAPT led me to believe there was much more in the way of instant, easy, mobile-friendly control coming in the package than what i've seen in my limited time with the unit.

i'll start with the biggest thing i thought was oversold/BS'd :
1-- the marketing seemed to say that using RAPT with the BZ4 would enable alerts to generated for you with the new wifi access. however the "alert" you get is ..... an email. not a text, or a phone notification, alarm, etc. an email. good for record keeping i guess, but as a time-sensitive message? nerp. (I've solved this issue, and now get text messages. happy to share the fix)

2- the celsius /fahrenheit changes dont stick in RAPT. also noted in the main BZ4 thread. rapt will convert to F. but the next time you look it might be showing you numbers in C, but it still says F. i kept getting my 150f cleaning temp target going back and forth between 150F and 65F. then back to 150F. then 65F. annoying.

3- the profiles you create on RAPT for BZ4 have multiple steps you can program, and you can also set those (email) alerts. but for some reason when you open up a profile you've saved earlier it doesnt show you the alerts. i've gone in and played with it a bunch. i dont see anything that shows when an alert is present/saved as a step in the profile. not sure why that isnt viewable with the rest of the steps. seems kind of important?

4- the mobile app doesnt appear to be an actual app. for reference, im on iPhone SE (2nd) and iOS 16. i used app store, downloaded RAPT and it took me to what appeared to be the regular app.rapt.io web portal. huh, ok. i searched around, saw a link to the Gen 4 instruction manual, and clicked. it popped up, but i i ended up having to hard close the "app" as there was no actual navigation button or other way to go "back" or close the document. WTF. so i try again, and as im going through and playing in the portal i realize its not really an app like you normally think of an app. it seems like its just a shortcut/link to the web portal. after eating lunch and going back in to play around some more i realized i couldn't find the app on my phone. i looked and looked, nothing. checked the "utilities" widget that has three apps inside of it, no luck. thinking i might have done something wrong, i went back to app store and was going to download it again. except that i couldnt. the app store button said "open" on app store, not "get". so yes, i had the "app" on my phone. but there's no button on my home screens. whenever i wanted to open it i had to go to app store to get the "open" button as it didnt exist on my phone with a normal button/widget on my home screens. so to sum it all up: not an "app" with its own environment, just a glorified hotlink to the web portal. and doesnt even save to your phone, had to keep going to app store to use it. what a waste.

so that's my initial list of complaints/issues/etc with BZ4+RAPT, and i havent even actually brewed yet. just played with temp calibration, created text alerts, and explored the "app" as they call it.

if anyone else has other bugs/questions/issues/etc lets get them all together here. maybe once it gets long enough they'll take a look and fix things.

Hello, im super interested if you could share the fix how you get a text message, i am having the same issues with the RAPT portal.

Additionally, i am a bit frustrated about the limited ability for setting up alerts - eg. there is no function to setup an alert WITHIN a certain step based on elapsed time (eg. to get alerted to add a certain addition like hops or yeast nutrients etc.). there is a workaround (i have to divide the step into 2 steps and setup the alert inbetween, but the whole profile programming seems very rudimentary)

best regards

 

[SanPancho]

Hello, im super interested if you could share the fix how you get a text message, i am having the same issues with the RAPT portal.

Additionally, i am a bit frustrated about the limited ability for setting up alerts - eg. there is no function to setup an alert WITHIN a certain step based on elapsed time (eg. to get alerted to add a certain addition like hops or yeast nutrients etc.). there is a workaround (i have to divide the step into 2 steps and setup the alert inbetween, but the whole profile programming seems very rudimentary)

best regards

Yeah, I’m with you. I’ve been in contact with their development folks and still can’t get more than very basic and rudimentary functionality. Somebody else recently chimed in and said they were able to get alot more function so I need to copy their profile program and see if that solves the problem somewhat. It seems that you have to program your profile and alerts in a very specific way to get things to work, which I think is BS. that’s neither explained to anybody before purchase nor reasonable to expect of users.
as for text alerts, they don’t seem interested in the free solution I offered. It seems they only want the alerts to come to you via the rapt app on your phone. in any case, go to your account profile in rapt portal and make sure you’re set to get the mobile push notification and also the email notification. Then you change your email address for notification based on your mobile providers formatting. For instance, with metro pcs i use this address to turn an incoming email into text message - [email protected]. just lookup whatever the formatting is for your carrier and you can enter that into the rapt portal. Then you’ll get the alerts as texts.

 

[SanPancho]

Hi Guys, I'm on the cusp of buying a gen 4 Brewzilla.
Has the unit grown on you at all? Would love to hear how its going. I've read mixed reviews. The local homebrew shop here sells them, but has tried to talk me into the Grainfather G30 instead. I'm still leaning towards the Gen 4 but needing some reassurance from someone who actually uses one.

Hey didn’t catch this earlier- if your still shopping I’d say you definitely should consider it. As long as you’re aware that the fancy web alert/programming stuff is definitely not as advertised yet. I’ve also heard the pid functionality isn’t great, but I don’t use it so I can’t say, although I know it takes a while to dial that stuff in so maybe user error/impatience. I also use a bag instead of the malt pipe so I can’t really speak to that either. And I brew half batches, so maybe my experience isn’t a great comparison…..
but so far it’s been good, I get pretty good mash recirculation with pump throttled down to slow the Flow. The neoprene jacket is definitely worth the cost as it helps maintain temps a lot better. Haven’t had a pump clog, even on hoppy stuff. And I turn the heat down to 65% during mash to prevent overshooting with good success. The chiller kinda sucks, but stainless just isn’t as fast as copper so not their fault.
it’s definitely worth considering, and a lot cheaper than grainfather. Personally I’d still buy it again, although I’d wait until they solved the web alert stuff since that was my whole reason for upgrading from gen3.

 

[brewjoyer1337]

Hi Guys, I'm on the cusp of buying a gen 4 Brewzilla.
Has the unit grown on you at all? Would love to hear how its going. I've read mixed reviews. The local homebrew shop here sells them, but has tried to talk me into the Grainfather G30 instead. I'm still leaning towards the Gen 4 but needing some reassurance from someone who actually uses one.

imho definately worth if you are a willing early adopter, but the whole ecosystem has a lot of potential and will continue to develop.

if you are looking for a turnkey solution where everything is tuned to perfection (but maybe with not as much potential and an overall older technology), go with the grainfather g70 / g30

 

[NZBrad]

Thanks guys, just needed a bit off reassurance. Gonna go ahead with the gen 4. I realize there's still a fair way to go with the software side of things, but i think that when the bugs get ironed out it'll be awesome.

 

[space_hutch]

Looking for help on how to set BrewZilla up a day ahead of time to start heating the strike water at a certain time the following day. Didn’t see anything in the profile steps on Rapt portal to specify day/time to start a step.

 

[brewjoyer1337]

Looking for help on how to set BrewZilla up a day ahead of time to start heating the strike water at a certain time the following day. Didn’t see anything in the profile steps on Rapt portal to specify day/time to start a step.

not currently possible

only solution (with a lot of energy waste) is to setup a ramp up temp profile step and define duration based on when you setup the step

 

[SanPancho]

I don’t think you can do that specifically. You’ll have to rig a solution via programming on a new profile. i Believe you can use the timer function to do it. 720min is 12 hours, so I’d set a program where the first step is to “heat” the water to like 50f for 12hours, and then set it to run the night before you brew. If you want to mash in at 8am, turn it on at 8pm. After that 12 hour first step, the next step should be to heat to strike temp and finish when it hits temp. You can set an alert for when it hits strike temp so you get pinged on your phone. The last/third step should be to hold the strike temp for 30min so you have time to get brewing. After that it turns off the heat just as A safety. Now you have 12 hours before it turns on, plus whatever time needed to heat up, and you’ll get an alert when it’s at temp.

 

[nesquevedo]

Good afternoon guys, I am writing to request your help, a few days ago I bought the brewzilla gen 4 35l, but when I try to connect it to the WIFI and the RAPT, it shows me a connection error, I don't know if this has happened to any of you and which one is the possible solution. I am currently waiting for kegland's response but I would like to request your help.

 

[Pokey46]

Good afternoon guys, I am writing to request your help, a few days ago I bought the brewzilla gen 4 35l, but when I try to connect it to the WIFI and the RAPT, it shows me a connection error, I don't know if this has happened to any of you and which one is the possible solution. I am currently waiting for kegland's response but I would like to request your help.

Are there any more specific details on the error that you can provide?

 

[Neldog0]

Are you using a lap top for the connection. Opening up their portal is the first step. In your controls of the Brewzilla make sure to enabled wifi.

 

[micraftbeer]

I came across this (old) post today, as I was tinkering with programming some profiles. I've used the BrewZilla on about 5-6 batches so far. I agree with the general comments that the programming/RAPT portal is definitely not intuitive. I'm glad I'm not the only one and I'm just slow...

They must've implemented fixes/upgrades to several of the things you listed earlier because they seem to work for me as I've been using it more the last month or two.

1. I wasn't getting the Alerts through the "App" at first either, but now I start getting notifications/alerts on my phone when I hit a step that has an alert programmed in. Seems like that started happening about 2 months ago.
2. I haven't seen the C/F flip-flop thing, so they must've fixed that. Sounds crappy. I do have some sort of conversion thing that is a small annoyance. I type in a mash step at 148F. When I run the profile, it calls it 147.9F. OK, not a big deal, but annoying.
3. When programming a step, each one has a link to set up an Alarm if I want. And if I set an Alarm on a step, when I look at the whole profile, it shows a little black bell/alarm icon. So they must've addressed that.
4. I haven't had the issue of not being able to find the "App", but I'm running an Android. I do agree that it's just a link to their web portal. On the plus side, once you figure out the non-intuitive icons (by being able to hover over the buttons on a laptop and see what they do), at least on my phone they operate in the exact same way...
5. I recently figured out the same overnight heating hack like was mentioned above. I set a step for a 65F temperature for several hours (there's a drop-down that lets you choose "hours" or "minutes"), and then it transitions right to my strike temperature heating. I used it once, and seemed to work fine.

 

[SanPancho]

oh man, i cant tell you how many emails it took back and forth with their development team to finally get some alerts working. it was pretty horrible. but we did end up figuring it out, and yes, its totally non-intuitive. you essentially had to break each brewing step down into like 5 programming steps, have those steps "end" for no apparent reason in order to trigger the alert. maybe they've fixed it or made it better, i dont know. once i got my profiles to work with alerts i havent touched it. i only use two, "preboil" to let me know when strike water is about to boil so i can prep salts and chiller, and a hochkurz mash schedule. they work, so not messing with them.

yeah, really weird they have to reduce all their temperatures by 0.1F. no idea what that's about. havent checked the C/F thing either as i dont really bother looking at the charts, the formatting is such a pain to deal with that i dont bother, and frankly im not really that interested in it anyways. but i do have a Pill, and have to say im likely going to sell it. it cant get a signal out of my ferm fridge, so kind of useless unless i spend even more money for a repeater, which just seems like some sunk-cost stuff. they really need to work on a way to make graphing better, or at least their controls more intuitive and easy to understand, and then i'd consider keeping it and spending on repeater. but frankly an old tilt i have is way better in that regard. i havent been on rapt lately to see its current version, but im still just hesitant to go further into their ecosystem.

i have yet to do the overnight setting, but sounds like having the option of "hours" vs "minutes" means they're finally getting some work done on the interface for rapt, making it more user friendly and maybe cleaning up some of these programming/interface issues.

 

[micraftbeer]

Your back & forth must've helped, because the alarms are better. On a given step, when you add an Alert to it, you get screens like below. Your efforts were not in vain!

 

[Pan_Kotsky]

How to delete not needed mashing profiles on the brewzilla controller?

 

[Stargazer]

sorry if I’m being dense, but for the life of me I can’t find where to switch to Fahrenheit in the RAPT app/web page. I set the Brewzilla to F but the web page is using Celsius.

Edit: oh, never mind! Found it under account settings.

 

[wakko222]

Has anyone had their wired control pad go bad?

Rant:
I have a Brewzilla 4 220V system. I got two brews out of it. On the second brew I had the pump clog and had to take it apart. In getting the pump unclogged the front barb broke off. I ordered a new pump for $75. I installed it and the pump worked again, but now the heaters would not warm up. I ordered a new control board and installed it after taking many pictures, but it still won't heat up. I also replaced the thermal cutout. I direct wired the heating elements up to 220 power (I am a Colorado licensed electrician,) and the heating elements do heat up. At this point I'm really not happy with my system.

 

[hungupdown]

I came across this (old) post today, as I was tinkering with programming some profiles. I've used the BrewZilla on about 5-6 batches so far. I agree with the general comments that the programming/RAPT portal is definitely not intuitive. I'm glad I'm not the only one and I'm just slow...

They must've implemented fixes/upgrades to several of the things you listed earlier because they seem to work for me as I've been using it more the last month or two.

1. I wasn't getting the Alerts through the "App" at first either, but now I start getting notifications/alerts on my phone when I hit a step that has an alert programmed in. Seems like that started happening about 2 months ago.
2. I haven't seen the C/F flip-flop thing, so they must've fixed that. Sounds crappy. I do have some sort of conversion thing that is a small annoyance. I type in a mash step at 148F. When I run the profile, it calls it 147.9F. OK, not a big deal, but annoying.
3. When programming a step, each one has a link to set up an Alarm if I want. And if I set an Alarm on a step, when I look at the whole profile, it shows a little black bell/alarm icon. So they must've addressed that.
4. I haven't had the issue of not being able to find the "App", but I'm running an Android. I do agree that it's just a link to their web portal. On the plus side, once you figure out the non-intuitive icons (by being able to hover over the buttons on a laptop and see what they do), at least on my phone they operate in the exact same way...
5. I recently figured out the same overnight heating hack like was mentioned above. I set a step for a 65F temperature for several hours (there's a drop-down that lets you choose "hours" or "minutes"), and then it transitions right to my strike temperature heating. I used it once, and seemed to work fine.

I'm running android (13) as well, but no luck getting any alerts to either phone or tablet, running app or Web portal. Having started profile from RAPT.
So wondering where I might be going wrong?

At first alert point. RAPT display closes, and get pop-up alert, " Clear cache for RAPT? RAPT closed because this app has a bug..."
On re-opening RAPT later, it will be showing the STOP button, even if brewzilla is then powered off! Clicking stop, gives warning "Do you want to stop the active profile".

I can not see any setting to enable notifications in the app.

At least brewzilla beeps/displays the alerts OK.

Other issues:
In the Android 'app' itself, after going to MyAccount - Api documentation, you get stuck there. Back just exits app, and if re-opened your still in documentation. The only way out seems to be android Force Stop of RAPT app. Can also get stuck this way in Issue tracker, after opening developer info.

If using RAPT enabled Bluetooth probe thermometer with the Gen 4 BrewZilla. The RAPT device info, is only displaying the internal temperature reading, though the graph does show line for probe, called 'control sensor'.

Is email to <[email protected]> the best route for reporting issues?

 

[hungupdown]

How to delete not needed mashing profiles on the brewzilla controller?

Thought - maybe delete profile in cloud, the try running profile on BZ., when it will then check for any profile updates.
Unfortunately it doesn't update to being 'deleted'.

 

[Pan_Kotsky]

Thought - maybe delete profile in cloud, the try running profile on BZ., when it will then check for any profile updates.
Unfortunately it doesn't update to being 'deleted'.

That is what I gather from around the information in FB group. Apparently, it should somehow synchronize with the cloud once or twice a week. Yet mine still sit there. Anyhow, I got over it as I don't find profile to be particularly useful I just been going manually for the last batch. Seems to be ok.

 

[hungupdown]

That is what I gather from around the information in FB group. Apparently, it should somehow synchronize with the cloud once or twice a week. Yet mine still sit there. Anyhow, I got over it as I don't find profile to be particularly useful I just been going manually for the last batch. Seems to be ok.

Thanks. Which FB group? I'd not managed to find anything usefull on there.

For the time being, I'll maybe just keep one simple 5 step profile: Strike temp; mash temp; boil temp; 23°C; 0°C, run from the BZ and using panel keypress for moving to each next step. With manual temp tweaks if doing a step mash.
It should cut down on time spent entering temperatures (& I don't see why 0.1° adjustment accuracy is needed anyway).
Getting phone alerts●, when temperatures for the steps are reached, saves having to watch the thermometer.
The final 0°C target, is there to ensure the heater won't come back on during emptying & cleaning.

● Once notifications work! The RAPT App needs updating to Android 13's new notifications requirement: "following installation, apps must now request explicit permission for notifications". At the moment on Android 13, the switch to enable "All RAPT notifications" may be greyed out, with a message below saying: "at your request, android is blocking this app's notifications from appearing on this device" (even though you hadn't requested this)!
I'm having to use an old phone for now (android 9), with RAPT installed just for getting notifications (as app crashes if used for control).

 

[Pan_Kotsky]

Thanks. Which FB group? I'd not managed to find anything usefull on there.

One is called KegLand Home Brew Community Group. Another one RAPT Users Group

 

[hungupdown]

When running profiles, it's not possible to tweek the steps target temperature, which otherwise could be handy sometimes. Though that could mess up any alarm based on temperature.
When going to next step when I press button, it's the temp up/down buttons that you must press.

The outline box, drawn around message prompting to press button for next step, is drawn across where the internal probe temperature reading is displayed (in a small font while using RAPT thermometer). And usually making it impossible to read.

 

[Pan_Kotsky]

I find mash profiles to be mostly useless at this point. I dislike everything about the profile system on this device and just go manually and set a timer on my phone. I still have not figured out the grain crush size and had three brews on my Gen 4 and all resulted in some degree of stuck mash/sparge. No matter the use of rice hulls. Therefore it still requires keeping an eye on it to some degree, so manual mode works better for me.

 

[hungupdown]

I find mash profiles to be mostly useless at this point. I dislike everything about the profile system on this device and just go manually and set a timer on my phone. I still have not figured out the grain crush size and had three brews on my Gen 4 and all resulted in some degree of stuck mash/sparge. No matter the use of rice hulls. Therefore it still requires keeping an eye on it to some degree, so manual mode works better for me.

I use just 3 profiles all the time. An infusion mash, and two stepped mash profiles. They set the temperature, and mostly use 'press a button' for the next step (rather than step timers).
I do the timing manually, except for step 1, which alerts me once strike temperature is reached.

It saves an awful lot of time, otherwise wasted in scrolling temperature to exactly the same values, brew after brew.

Final step, called 'cooling', has an alarm at 25°C. This tells me cooling is nearly finished.
It also has a target of 0°C , which is remembered after power off. So when powered back on for draining or cleaning, there's no risk of the heaters coming back on.